The Lot or Part of Fortune

by Robert Hand

Copyright 1996 by Robert Hand (info@robhand.com)
Posted in the Newsgroup alt.astrology in February and March
1996.

Author's Introduction
What I am going to do here is something similar to what I
have been doing on Prodigy. I am going to be talking about
the discoveries and lore of ancient and medieval astrology.
The main difference between these postings and those on Prodigy
is that these will be a bit more technical. I know that not
everyone on Alt.Astrology is an expert but actually you don't
need to be much of an expert to understand the old astrology.
Those who could justifiably be called "experts" in modern
astrology actually have to learn as much as the beginners.
The concepts are quite simple, but become complicated in the
putting together. But this should not be a surprise. This
is just as true of modern astrology. Anyhow here is my first
note.

The Lot or
Part of Fortune
Part 1

Most astrologers have encountered the Part
(or Lot as the Greeks called it) of Fortune, but have little
idea of what to do with it. The modern literature on the subject
is of little help tending to make it an extremely abstract
symbol, something "karmic." To complicate things further,
it is now clear that for approximately 50% of all people the
Part of Fortune is usually computed incorrectly, namely those
persons born at night between sunset and sunrise. I'll come
back to that in a moment. The Part of Fortune is computed
in the following manner:

These formulae should be interpreted as in
this way: compute the longitudes of the Ascendant, Moon and
Sun as measured from 0 degrees of Aries. This is done according
to the table below.

Aries

Add 0

. Libra

Add 180

Taurus

Add 30

. Scorpio

Add 210

Gemini

Add 60

. Sagittarius

Add 240

Cancer

Add 90

. Capricorn

Add 270

Leo

Add 120

. Aquarius

Add 300

Virgo

Add 150

. Pisces

Add 330

Let's say someone has an Ascendant
of 20 Virgo, a Moon of 4 Aries, and a Sun at 17 Aquarius.
An Ascendant of 20 Virgo means a Descendant of 20 Pisces.
Since the Sun is between the Ascendant and the Descendant,
this is a night birth so we use the night birth formula.

Fortune = 170 + 4 - 99 = 75.
This is less than 360 so we don't need to do anything more.
This gives us a Part of Fortune of 15 Gemini.

The reason why most people who
are born at night have been given the wrong Part of Fortune
is that most of the modern authorities have used the day formula
for night births! This is because one ancient authority, Ptolemy,
seemed to advocate doing all charts with the day formula.
We are now fairly certain from our new translation of Ptolemy
and his ancient commentators that he did not intend this.
Most other ancient sources advocated using the day formula
for day births and the night formulas for night and so did
the medieval astrologers. And these people knew what to do
with the Part of Fortune.

Let me conclude this note by
giving a very brief description of what the Part of Fortune
is. The Part of Fortune is used to describe the basic way
in which the individual is physically connected with the surrounding
world. It is one of the significators of the body and health,
and it is the primary significator of prosperity, and also
career as it relates to prosperity. But the method of using
it will come as a bit of a surprise. This is one of the most
important discoveries that Project Hindsight has made. In
my next note I'll go into that.

The Lot or Part of Fortune
Part 2

In the first installment of this
series of notes I described the method for computing the Part
of Fortune and said a bit about what it meant, that it was
the key to understanding the native's prosperity and career.
In this installment I will go further into its symbolism and
say more about its proper use according to the Greeks.

As I have said, the Part of Fortune is a primary
indicator of prosperity, but it is more than that. It is created
out of the longitudes of the Sun, Moon, and Ascendant, and
therefore is composed out of the three of the most important
places in the chart (only the Midheaven outside of these three
is as important) and as a result becomes as important as they
are. In modern astrology there is a tendency to regard the
Part of Fortune as a minor point in the chart, but this was
not the case with ancient astrology.

In ancient astrology the Ascendant is the primary
indicator of the physical body and health. The Moon is also
a very important secondary indicator about the body. But there
is a difference between them. The Ascendant was considered
to be the body at its most physical, material level. The Moon
was the living aspect of the body, in fact soul, but soul
incarnated in a physical body. The Part of Fortune, being
composed of both of these along with the Sun, is also an indicator
of the living, physical body and its relationships with the
physical and social world in which the native lives. Its capacity
to signify prosperity comes from this. If the Part of Fortune
is in good condition, the relationship between the native
and the physical and social world in which he or she lives
is one that supports the native and enables the native to
live well. If the Part of Fortune is in poor condition, the
native has a harder time living in relationship with the world
that supports the native. The same can also be said about
the relationships of the Part of Fortune and health.

However, in the case of both significations
one must keep in mind that no one indication in the chart,
not even the Part of Fortune, can be taken by itself as a
total indicator of any area of life. For health one must also
look at the Ascendant, its ruler, the Moon and its ruler.
Also the sixth and eighth houses as indicators of illness
and death respectively have strong indications for health.
For material prosperity one should also look at the second
house, the tenth house, and their rulers.

That said, however, the Part of Fortune is
well placed when there are benefics or dignified planets in
the same sign with it (the fact that "sign" is referred
to here is very important as will be seen later on), or these
same kinds of planets aspect the Part of Fortune. [Note: if
the terms "benefic" and "dignified" are
strange to you, they will be explained at the end of this
article.] Also it was said to help the Part of Fortune if
it was in a sign that was ruled by benefics, and any point
in a chart is helped by being in a sign ruled by a dignified
planet.

The Part of Fortune is not so well placed if
it is in a sign with malefics, especially if the malefics
are debilitated. Squares, oppositions, and conjunctions with
malefics are also not considered to be very good. As a modern
astrologer I would have to say that such indications do not
mean poverty or bad health so much as they mean that the native
will have to work harder or has a narrower range of possible
routes to success. But given those two considerations, the
results can still be very positive.

As my concluding comment in this installment,
let me say that the Part of Fortune is not merely a point
like the planets or the nodes. It is the start of a house
system. The sign of the Part of Fortune is the first house
of the Fortuna system, and the first house of the Fortuna
system extends from 0 degrees to 30 degrees of the sign in
which the Part is located. And each of the other houses of
the Fortuna system also extend from 0 degrees to 30 degrees
of their respective signs. In the next installment I will
describe what the ancients said should be done with these
houses.

Terms Used:

Benefic
A planet which easily produces results which would be generally
considered favorable or "good." Whether these results
really are good for the native will only become clear over
time. Certainly benefics produce a desired result more easily
in most situations than malefics (see next entry). The natural
benefics are Venus, Jupiter, the Sun by trine or sextile aspects,
and any planet that is well aspected and dignified (see note).

Malefic
A planet which does not easily produce results which would
be considered "good". Generally speaking malefics
are not so much "bad" as it is that they require
more thought, more consciousness, and more skill at managing
life than the benefics require in most cases. In fact the
two main malefics, Mars and Saturn, are necessary for building
character and strength. But either of these handled without
consciousness leads to less than fortunate results. The natural
malefics are Mars, Saturn and the Sun by conjunction only.

General Comment about Both Benefics and
Malefics Ultimately whether a planet is a malefic or a benefic
depends upon a number of factors. Planets that are naturally
one or the other can be converted into their opposite by other
circumstances in the chart. One cannot assume that Venus and
Jupiter will always produce good results, and that Saturn
and Mars will always produce bad results. This is a old classification
and must be taken somewhat freely. In the end I like Ptolemy's
definition of the terms best. According to Ptolemy, a benefic
is a planet whose natural influence leads to moderation and
balance. A malefic is a planet whose natural influence leads
to extremes and imbalance.

Dignified and Debilitated Planets may be dignified (made stronger) and debilitated
(weakened) in a variety of ways. In this article I mainly
refer to dignity and debility by signs. Planets are dignified
when they are in signs in which they rule or are exalted.
They are debilitated when they are in signs opposite these.
Any regular beginning text of astrology will list these signs.
There are other dignities and debilities as well. See Lee
Lehman, Essential Dignities, Whitford Press.

The Lot or Part of Fortune
Part 3

If the Part of Fortune is a first house
marker, our natural tendency as modern Western astrologers
is make the degree of the Part the cusp of the first house
and to set up equal houses from the Part using the Part as
an Ascendant. However, from the material we have found so
far in Project Hindsight what the ancient astrologers actually
did was a bit different. And what they did was characteristic
of house division in all of the oldest texts including, we
now know, Ptolemy himself. As I have already mentioned, the
houses of the Fortuna system were measured from 0 degrees
to 30 degrees of the sign that the Part of Fortune was in.
This practice, which has been dubbed whole-sign house division,
was not only used with the Part of Fortune, but also with
the Ascendant itself! The entire modern problem of house division
did not exist for the ancients. They did not see the signs
as separate from the houses. The houses were simply roles
that the signs took on depending upon their relation to some
point that marked one of the signs as being the first house
or place ("place" is the proper translation of the
word that the ancients used for house as we use the word).
That marking point was called in Greek, horoskopos.

If that word sounds familiar, it should. It
is the basis of the word 'horoscope', and its literal meaning
is "hour marker," not "watcher of the hour"
as often stated in the texts. The hour marker was any point
that had the ability to mark a sign as a first house or place
for some purpose. In modern astrology we have sun-sign astrology,
a technique not widely respected by professional astrologers.
Yet in sun-sign astrology we see an ancient practice used
(simple-mindedly to be sure) in a modern context. In sun-sign
astrology the Sun is a horoskopos in exactly the ancient manner;
it marks the sign of the Sun as a first house or place. All
other signs become houses or places with respect to the sign
of the Sun. The only problem with modern sun-sign astrology
is that the solar horoskopos was supposed to be used to describe
a native's father, not the native, and then only if the native
was born in the daytime.

The ancients in the West used the Ascendant
and the Part of Fortune as the major hour markers. The ancients
of the East in India used the Ascendant and the Moon is the
primary hour markers. What is interesting here is that the
Part of Fortune is a part associated with the Moon! Apparently
these practices are related.

The following is a quotation from Paulus Alexandrinus
a 4th century author:

"And Fortune signifies everything that
concerns the body, and what one does through the course of
life. It becomes indicative of possessions, reputation and
privilege."

And Vettius Valens who lived at about the same
time as Ptolemy wrote the following:

". . . the Lot itself will possess the
power of the Horoskopos, that of life; the tenth zoidion [sign]
from this, the power of the Midheaven, that of reputation;
the 7th, the power of the Descendant; the 4th, of the subterraneous
zoidion, and the remaining places will possess the power of
the 12 regions."

In another place he wrote "We have also
found the 11th place [sign counted as a house] from Fortune
to be an acquisitive place, a bestower of belongings and goods,
and especially when benefics are upon it or are testifying
[aspecting]."

These statements are holding up in practice.
I have found that the sign of the Part of Fortune and its
ruler give very good information on profession as it relates
to making money along with the tenth house (counted in the
usual manner from the Ascendant). The tenth sign from the
sign of the Part of Fortune is also very good for helping
to describe the actual social role that the occupation serves.
The eleventh sign from the Part has a special role in determining
both how well and by what means one earns money. Astrologers
who actually earn money from doing astrology have been seen
to have Mercury in the sign of the Part of Fortune, or the
eleventh sign from the Part of Fortune, or ruling either of
these. Mercury is the ancient ruler of astrology before Uranus
was discovered. And I would have to say that it still works!
The ancient writers also said that the Part of Fortune and
the houses derived from it had to with the body, health, and
actions that are done spontaneously or on an emotional basis.

Another interesting Fortuna house is the seventh.
While it may have something to do with relationships, its
primary symbolism seems to derive from its being the opposition
to the Part itself, and the effect is stronger if a point
in the seventh Fortuna place is closer to the exact opposition
to the Part of Fortune. One of the oldest significations of
the seventh house was death because the Sun set there and
its light was extinguished. The Fortuna seventh of course
is not a sunset point, but since the Part of Fortune has something
to do with the body, the opposition to the Part seems to have
something to with illness and physical problems.

Much more work needs to be on the Part of Fortune,
and this can only be considered a taste. However, we are not
done with parts yet. There are many other parts as well, and
many of these also serve as hour markers. We will take up
some of these in the next installment.

A final note: all the passages used in
this text are from the Project Hindsight translations of the
ancient Greek texts unless otherwise noted.

The Lot or Part of Fortune
Part 4

We now come to some of the other lots. As of
this writing we have found over two dozen lots which come
from Egyptian sources. This should dispel once and for all
the notion that lots are Arabic. Most of them in fact are
from a book called the Panaretos which was attributed to Hermes
Tresmegistes. He is no doubt a legendary figure with no historical
basis, but anything attributed to him before the Middle Ages
can be safely ascribed to Hellenistic Egyptian sources or
earlier. The Lot of Fortune was attributed to the also legendary
Nechepso and Petosiris, a legendary pharaoh and his priest.

First of all several lots were assigned to
the planets. Of these the Lot of Fortune, as I have mentioned,
was assigned to the Moon, the Lot of Spirit to the Sun. The
Lot of Spirit is the second most important of the lots. Its
formula is very simple. It is the same as the Lot of Fortune,
but with the Sun and Moon positions in the formula reversed.
Thus the formula for the Lot of Spirit by day is the same
as the Lot of Fortune by night, and vice versa. The following
formulas should make this clear.

People who have been born at night and have
been using the Lot of Fortune as computed by most software
and computer services have actually been using the Lot of
Spirit! The Lot of Spirit is a point which has strong psychological
and spiritual overtones, unlike the very physical-plane based
Lot of Fortune. The Lot of Spirit has to do with the nature
of the will, what you intend (as opposed to what merely happens
to you), and also has much to do with career, but apparently
more your career as a statement that you make about what you
are in the world. It also has to do with illness, like the
Lot of Fortune, but it would seem that with the Lot of Spirit
we are talking about the spiritual bases of illness as opposed
to the physical bases. Unlike the Lot of Fortune, the Lot
of Spirit does not often seem to have been use as a first
house marker. Paulus Alexandrinus says the following about
the Lot of Spirit. "Spirit happens to be lord of soul,
temper, mindfulness, and every power; and sometimes it also
cooperates in the determination concerning what one does."
This is about all we can say about the Lot of Spirit at this
point.

The other planets also have lots most of which
are partly composed out of the Lots of Fortune and Spirit.

"Necessity signifies constraints, submissions,
struggles, and wars, and makes enmities, hatreds, condemnations,
all the other restrictive things befalling men as a result
of their birth." -- Paulus Alexandrinus

"Nemesis becomes a contributing cause
of subterranean fates and of everything which is ice-cold,
of demonstration, impotence, exile, destruction, grief, and
quality of death." -- Paulus Alexandrinus

These quotes from Paulus are about all we know
about these lots. None of these appear to have been used as
house markers.

The next group of lots are related to family
issues:

Lot of the Father Day Lot = Asc. + Sa - Su
Night Lot = Asc. + Su - Sa

If Saturn is within 17 degrees of the Sun use
this formula according to the Greek sources.

Day or Night Lot = Asc. + Ju - Ma

When Saturn is within 17 degrees of the Sun,
Arabic sources used a different formula.

Day Lot = Asc. + Ju - Su
Night Lot = Asc. + Su - Ju

I don't know what happens if both Jupiter and
Saturn are within 17 degrees of the Sun, but otherwise I prefer
the Arabic formula when Saturn is close to the Sun.

Lot of the Mother Day Lot = Asc. + Mo - Ve
Night Lot = Asc. + Ve - Mo

Lot of Siblings Day Lot = Asc. + Ju - Sa
Night Lot = Asc. + Sa - Ju

Not all sources reverse the formula for Siblings
at night, and I am inclined to agree with those sources that
do not. I suggest that one start with the day formula used
for both day and night charts. This may seem inconsistent
of me but there is a principle underlying my position. In
any case only experiment will tell.

Lot of Children
Day Lot = Asc. + Sa - Ju
Night Lot = Asc. + Ju - Sa

Notice that this is the reverse of the Lot
of Siblings. Here again some sources do not reverse the formula
at night, and here again I agree tentatively with those that
do not. Obviously persons born in the daytime have no problem
here, but persons born at night will have to experiment. This
lot is for both male and female children.

In the next installment I will give some
more of these lots and some instruction on how they were supposed
to be used.

The Lot or Part of Fortune
Part 5

In addition to the general lot of children,
Vettius Valens gives two other lots that pertain to children,
a lot of sons, i.e., male children, and a lot of daughters.
These are as follows:

Lot of Sons
Day or Night Lot = Asc. + Me - Ju

Lot of Daughters
Day or Night Lot = Asc. + Ve - Ju

Vettius Valens makes the following statement
about both these and the Lot of Children mentioned in the
previous installment.

"When, then, they are afflicted by Kronos
[Saturn] and Ares [Mars], they are the causes of childlessness
or the destruction of children, but when they are assisted
by Zeus [Jupiter], they are the causes of fruitfulness."

Now we come to a group of lots that pertain
to marriage, or more precisely male-female relationships.
It is not clear from the Greek material how these are to be
differentiated, but we do have some assistance from the Arabic
material. First here they are:

In Al-Biruni, an Arab era astrologer, the two
lots attributed to Hermes are simply referred to as lots of
marriage. But the other two lots, the one for men and the
one for women, are given additional designations. The lot
for the marriage of men using the Venus - Sun arc is called
"Trickery and Deception of Men toward Women," and
"Intercourse of Men." The lot for women that uses
the Mars - Moon arc is called "Misconduct of Women,"
"Trickery and Deceit of Men by Women," "Intercourse
of Women, " and "Unchastity of Women." Disregarding
for a moment the obvious sexism in these designations, it
is quite clear that the marital lots of Valens are not as
specifically connected to marriage, but are more connected
to sexual relationships in general. But the Hermetic lots,
both of which contain Saturn, seem to have more of a connection
specifically to legally sanctioned marriage. At this very
early stage in my research this principle seems to be holding
up, that the Hermetic lots relate to legal marriage, and the
lots of Valens relate to male-female sexual relationships
in general.

This leaves the general lot of marriage given
by Valens that uses the arc from Jupiter to Venus and vice
versa. It have little experience with this one thus far, but
it too would seem to be connected to general relations between
the sexes rather than specifically legal marriage. However,
since Jupiter has a strong connection with the law, we cannot
rule out this lot also as referring to legal marriage.

In addition to these lots, there are other
special purpose lots that are mentioned in the Greek literature.
We do not have a clear notion of what all of these may be
for, but they are all interesting.

The first of these is the Lot of Basis. As
the name suggests, it would seem to be something fundamental.
It appears to be a way of combining the lots of Fortune and
Spirit and making something that combines their signification.
The formula is as follows:

Here however it is not day or night that determines
the order of the formula. Instead we use whichever is the
shorter arc. IF PF - Sp is more than 180 degrees, we use Sp
- PF, and vice versa. Its position is always below the horizon
or exactly on the Ascendant or Descendant because the Sp to
PF arc can never be more than 180 degrees. This may have something
to do with its signification because it is always below the
earth like a foundation. Also as with Fortuna and Spirit,
New Moons and Full Moons have special significance with this
lot. At the New Moon all three lots are conjunct the Ascendant,
and at the Full Moon, they are all conjunct the Descendant.

Lot of Debt
Day or Night Lot = Asc. + Sa - Me

This is a lot that does not look as if it would
function as a first house indicator. The lore on this lot
is not abundant, but the logic of lots would indicate that
whatever house it would fall into could be a source of financial
losses or debt.

Lot of Theft
Day Lot = Sa - Ma - Me
Night Lot = Sa - Me - Ma

Also a lot that does not function as a first
house indicator. This is one of the few lots that does not
contain the Ascendant as a component. As such it resembles
the kinds of formulas that one finds in the modern Hamburg
School of Alfred Witte.

This lot is made out of the Sun and Moon and
their exaltation degrees. This is one of the few instances
in which the exaltation degrees (as opposed to their signs)
are used. It is connected to the births of eminent and famous
people.

Lot of Being in a Foreign Land
Day or Night Lot = Asc. + Ma - Sa

Lot of Accusation
Day Lot = Asc. + Ma - Sa
Night Lot = Asc. + Sa - Ma

These last two are almost the same. The Lot
of Being in a Foreign Land does not switch at night, and the
Lot of Accusation does. The structure of the Lot of Being
in a Foreign Land clearly tells us that we are not talking
about vacation travel here. It is more like a Lot of Exile.
The Lot of Accusation indicates the house through which the
native is "likely to experience failure, dangers, or
downfalls." [Valens] In later astrology this lot became
the Lot of Inseparable Illness, i.e., incurable illness, and
also the Lot of Police, which accords well with the idea of
the Lot of Accusation. I have little experience with the lot
as an indicator of illness, but it does seem to indicate areas
of life where someone may be accused of something, either
falsely or truthfully.

In the above formula 'Ru' stands for the ruler
of the Ascendant. This is a point that relates to death. We
have little systematic information of its use except that
it seems to relate to the manner of death. I would urge astrologers
not to be careless in the use of this lot.

Robert Hand 2/16/96 - 3/20/96 Robert Hand has been
doing translations of ancient and medieval astrology texts
since 1993 with Project Hindsight and that effort has published
over 2000 pages of translations and commentary. If anyone
is interested in further information on Project Hindsight,
they have a web page at Project Hindsight.

As one of the largest astrology portals WWW.ASTRO.COM offers a lot of free features on the subject. With high-quality horoscope interpretations by the world's leading astrologers Liz Greene, Robert Hand and other authors, many free horoscopes and extensive information on astrology for beginners and professionals, www.astro.com is the first address for astrology on the web.